Sunday, February 28, 2016

Knocking it out!

I love the blog "Funky Junk Interiors" Donna is such a creative do it yourselfer with such a wonderful outlook about life. Her blog is just a joy to read. Last fall she started a "crap to clean before Christmas" challenge. I loved the idea, but I did not join in and blog about the crap I cleaned up. Now, crap to clean by Christmas sounds like it has turned into crap to clean before spring for Donna, hey we are all busy, and it is nice to know I am not alone in my long slow drag to the de-crapped finish line....huh....is there a finish line for de-crapping? I think that just may be a never ending task.
 
So although I have not been blogging about all my cleaning and projects, I have been working right along. Slowly before Christmas and through January, but this month I have really been knocking out some of these little projects and clean up chores.
 
And this weekend, I finally got that pendant light that I bought at the Nashville Flea last spring hung up in the living room corner that needed to be de-crapped. Two in one, corner de-crapped, decorating project accomplished.
 
Win, win. And I love it!
 
 
Such a warm golden glow.
 
 It casts the most perfect amount of warm light in the room. So relaxing!
 
I hit the Nashville flea Saturday. It was such a warm gorgeous late winter day, I decided outside flea market therapy was just what I needed to blow away the winter doldrums and reward myself for working hard the last several weekends! I did not come away with much, but enough to make it worth my while. But I will tell you more about that later this week!
 
I will leave you with a shot of my weekend flowers, Pretty winter white lilies!
Hope you are having a wonderful weekend!
 
 

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Design Change!

Part of the creative process is changing your mind....sometimes several times.
 
My plan for the letters off the family farmhouse screen doors was to hang them on rustic pallet wood. But when I was out and about shopping for craft supplies, I stumbled across something else. I thought these wood slates would resemble a fence once painted black.  
 
 
Not bad for the first try... but, I think I will hit it with another coat of flat black paint this weekend, and try a different method to mount the letter. Wiring it on worked, but I think the letter will start to slip after awhile, needs to be a bit more stable.
 
But I think I may like this plan a little better than the pallet wood. The black should really pop next to the sage green that we painted the walls of our bathroom.
 
Always be open to other options! You never know how it will turn out!
 
Hope you are having a great week!
 
 

Saturday, February 20, 2016

In a metal mood

Last Saturday I dropped some single stem Hydrangeas off at Creative Village. It seems my arrangements get a lot of attention and people have asked if I would bring in some single stems. So, I threw a couple together and have to say I like how they turned out!


I used another can to make up the bottom and the leaves of the flowers, It gave me a nice base for the stem and helped fill the flower shape out. I was pretty happy with the result.
 
finishing the flowers off on Friday night must have put me in a metal mood, because when I stopped into my favorite indoor flea market before Creative Village, I walked out with pretty much nothing but....metal!
 
I have had my eye on the aluminum bowl and platter for awhile now. I think they are going to be perfect to use this summer for those nights when we eat outside or for snacks by the pool.
 
 

And the cheese grater! I love vintage kitchen stuff anyway, but I really loved this. Fits perfectly over some of my vintage bowls.

 
Perfect fit right over a bowl ! My kids are cheese junkies, this will get a lot of use,  I shred a lot of cheese.


And more tiny aluminum pie plates. My daughter loves these, they are great for making tiny pies or giant muffins.
 
 
Another doily, what can I say, I have a weakness. I have almost enough to tackle my doily project, I think if I cannot hit the Nashville flea market next week I will see if I cant make it work with what I have.
 

And Mahjong tiles. I doubt they are vintage, but I thought they would be a great addition to our vintage game collection. And Mahjong tiles are really pretty!
 
 
 
We are tackling home improvement projects this weekend, painting and redecorating the bathroom  so, no junkin for me, but, I think that if weather permits I may hit the Nashville Flea Market next weekend! I am already getting that itch to be strolling outside looking for vintage treasures! My version of Spring fever I guess, LOL.
 
Hope you are having a great weekend!

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Projects

I always have a lot of projects. Big projects, little projects, expensive, cheap, difficult and easy, long lists of them. Some projects I jump into right away and complete in a very short amount of time, but others may sit while I ponder exactly how I want the end product to turn out.
 
This is one of those projects.
 
My husbands family owns a large farm in East TN and over the years the100 year old farm house on the property as fallen into disrepair. About 14 years ago while visiting the farm and looking through the contents of the house (that had long been abandoned) to see what could be salvaged, I spied these decorative metal pieces on the front screen doors. The doors themselves were bent, rusted and beyond repair, but I was sure I could do something with the letters and thought it would be a sweet memento of the family farm house. So my husband and I pulled them off the doors and brought them home. Where I put them in a box and there they have stayed.
 
No, I am not a hoarder, I swear. Ok, at least.... I don't think I am.
 
 
Well this weekend is their weekend.
 
 We are painting and redecorating our smaller bathroom with a rustic vintage theme and I thought, BAM! I want those letters mounted on some battered pallet wood to hang on the wall in the bathroom!
 
If this project was a child it would be a freshman in high school. I don't usually take 14 years to finish a project, but when I take a while to figure things out, they usually turn out really cool!
 
So check in with me next week to see how they come out!
 
Hope you are having  great week! 
 
 
 
 

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day!
 
Well, my daughters Valentines gift bags for her little girlfriends were a big success! They loved them!
 
So onto the big girls!
 
Before Christmas my daughter and I decided to do candy boxes to send to her Grandmothers and Great Aunts (who treat my kids just like their own grandkids) she was excited to pick out and make the candy, assemble them and mail them out, but...well the holidays got away from us and we just could not squeeze it in. So, we decided to follow the example of Paul and Julia Child and make a big deal out of Valentines day instead!
 
So our Christmas candy boxes became Valentines candy boxes instead! And they were just as much fun to put together as the Christmas boxes would have been.
 
Pralines had to be included, it was the only thing my daughter could not make. I used the bigger pot this time and only burned myself once....I am getting better at it! But I need to get a little faster at getting them on the pan to cool. Third times the charm right?
 
 
This Chocolate Nut bark is a family favorite. My Uncle refers to it as "Crack" because it is so addictive!
 
I like to get the dried fruit and nuts assembled for and ready for decorating first.
 
 
Pour out the gorgeous white chocolate.
 

Then a layer of milk chocolate. Really, pretty on its own, but add the fruit and nuts? Gorgeous.
 
 
See? Just beautiful! And delicious!
 
 
One candy that did not work out. Homemade Tootsie rolls. We were excited about these. But, major epic Pinterest fail. It resembled something you might find in a dirty diaper. And the taste? Um....not worth the calories. Yuck.
 

So the box only contained two choices of candy. Next year I think we will try making truffles!

 
We think they turned out so pretty! And they were fun to make. Definitely worth becoming a yearly tradition!
 
Hope you enjoy your Valentines day!
 

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Little girls and valentines day.

Little girls love Valentines day.
 
But mine is past the cute valentines day cards in decorated shoe boxes stage, she wanted to do little gift bags for her closest girlfriends. And of course, since she IS my child, she hit her Pinterest account to see what she could come up with.
 
Yes, my 11 year old daughter has her own Pinterest account. I was getting tired of her messing my boards up.
 
After looking around, she decided she wanted to make cool aid lip gloss, lip scrub and solid perfume with essential oils.
 
And I shall call her "mini me".
 
It was a fun way to spend Saturday afternoon. The cool aid lip gloss was fun to whip together and super easy for kids to do on their own.
 
 
I have to admit, I really liked the lip scrub. I plan to whip up a batch of this for myself. And the flavored baking oils made it very yummie sugar lip scrub.
 
 
But we really had fun making the solid perfumes. My daughter picked out the oils she wanted to use. It ended up smelling so good!
 

A quick trip to the $ tree for some fun candies and gift bags.....
 


She was so excited to put it all together. We were both happy with how they turned out.

 
 
I think all her sweet little girlfriends will be very happy with their surprises. It is great to have a crafty kid that loves to do things for her friends.
 
But we were not finished yet, she had her beloved Aunties and Grandmothers to make gifts for as well. We had decided at Christmas time to follow the example of Paul and Julia Child. Everyone is so busy at Christmas, they did Valentines cards and parties instead. An excellent idea if you ask me! Valentines day can be so much fun! I will have to show you what she came up with for her Aunties and Grandmothers later this week just in case they all have not gotten their boxes in the mail yet!
 
Hope you are having a great week!

Sunday, February 7, 2016

A pop of color!

I have been playing around with some more ideas for my aluminum Hydrangea's, and I decided to take a bit of inspiration from one of my favorite porch decorations.
 
Red geraniums in Café Du Monde coffee cans!
 
I love the look of bright red geraniums planted in Café Du Monde coffee cans sitting on my front porch, so I thought I would see what I could do with my Hydrangeas, and I thing they turned out quite well! This pretty arrangement will be making its way to Creative Village next weekend!
 
 
I really enjoyed putting this together, and it has me thinking about what other combinations I can come up with. I am wondering how pretty some blue Hydrangeas would look in a beautiful vintage Milk Glass vase, I am really excited about giving that one a try!
 
I really liked how the lace looked around the bottom of the flowers.
 

 
I think it paired well with the burlap roses.

 
But as pretty as these turned out. I still love real flowers best!
 
 
 
This was the arrangement I put together with the flowers I bought at Trader Joe's on Saturday, I really loved it. So pretty and spring like!
 
I hope you have had a wonderful weekend!

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

You have to be a bit of a history nerd....

I think that people who collect.....well almost anything really, but especially anything vintage have to be a little bit of a history nerd. Or, maybe a bit of a romantic.
 
 I love researching some of the things I have come across in my thrifting. Not just the era that they were popular in but the stories around it. Furniture, all the glassware, McCoy and Red Wing pottery, interesting stories about the business, the artists or how some of my favorite things were used for marketing giveaways like how Jadeite used to basically be a grocery store giveaway. I think that kind of information is just...well fun and very interesting. Yes, I guess I am a bit of a history nerd. You do not want to watch an old movie with me, I am forever getting more excited about what they are wearing, what is hanging on the wall or the glasses they are drinking from or the dishes they are eating off of or (most often) what is in the background of the room than I am about what is going on between the people.
 
I have been told I am annoying....I am ok with this.
 
Last week I was reading an article about collecting and vintage values and one of the topics was import marks. Apparently prior to 1914 US customs only required the name of the Country of origin to be stamped on the item. After 1914 they required "Made in" to accompany the place. For example, an item marked "Germany" would have to be marked "Made in Germany" after 1914. Pretty interesting stuff right?
 
Ok, maybe only I think so.
 
Anyway after reading the article, it made me think about my first collecting love. Lady planters. Yes I love the head vases and I do have a few, but they were always hard to find and above my budget. But I found Lady Planters fairly easy to find and within my spending limits at the time. I have a pretty large collection, mainly consisting of Lefton and Napco ladies, but I do have a couple marked "Germany" and they happen to be two of my favorites.
 
Isn't she lovely? I think she looks more French Aristocracy, but she is marked "Germany"
 

But this lovely lady looks very German to me, I don't know why, I guess I have a vivid imagination.

 
I just love them. The majority of my Lady planter collection is in storage now, but I could never put these up. I love them too much.
 
 
There are their markings!

 
Believe it or not, I have never used them for flowers, just to sit around and look pretty.

 
Of course I had to share with my husband my little tidbit of trivia. His reaction was " You mean to tell me you have a 100+ year old tchotchke on a shelf in the kids bathroom?!?!?" Huh...yes, I guess I see your point. In my defense I did have a bit of florist gum holding her in place on the shelf. But, since it turns out they are both pretty old. They have been relocated to a safer spot in my bedroom.
 
Just fine with me, I get to enjoy looking at them more in there.
 
what are some of your favorite trivia tidbits about your collectables?
 
Hope you are having an excellent week!